Vibrations are known to be an important and common signal for insects that cause behaviors such as repellence, attraction, mating, feeding, oviposition and the like. Therefore, it may be possible to control the behavior of various insect pests by artificially controlling a vibration signal.
Examples of such control include positive behavior control against beneficial insects and negative behavior control against insect pests. Examples of positive behavior control include the attraction to a target insect pest of natural enemies and predators used as an insect pest control resource, the attraction of pet insect beetles, and the settlement of honey bees, which are domesticated insects. Further, examples of negative behavior control include controlling an insect pest through repellence or by inhibiting its mating, feeding, oviposition and the like.
For example, an insect pest control method that uses vibrations that propagate through wood is an example of insect pest control that utilizes such behavior control. Since this method can be thought of as a physical control, it has the advantage of not suffering from the problem of chemical resistance, which is a universal problem for chemically synthesized pesticides, or the problem of having an adverse impact on the human body, the environment, or a non-target organism. Therefore, this method will contribute to the development of environmentally-friendly insect pest control technologies as a substitute for chemical agents that for a long time have been demanded by society due to the appearance of insect pests that have resistance to chemical agents and increased awareness about environmental and food safety.
As examples of vibration-based insect pest control, Non-Patent Documents 1 and 2 disclose attempts to control the mulberry borer by inhibiting a feeding behavior and an oviposition behavior with fig branch vibrations.
Further, Patent Documents 1 and 2 disclose a control device for house insect pests that uses ultrasounds.
However, including insect pest control, there are no examples of a desired objective being achieved by controlling insect pest behavior with vibrations. The reasons for this include, for example, the fact that correct knowledge concerning the relationship among vibration parameters including frequency in insects that exhibit behaviors by detecting vibrations has been lacking, and the fact that it is difficult to determine the frequency and amplitude of the vibrations that control a specific behavior of an insect due to the difficulty of scrutinizing the effects of vibrations that were generated spontaneously (spontaneous vibrations) in the habitat medium of the insect.
As described above, despite the demands by society for a method that controls the behavior of insects with vibrations, especially a method that controls insect pests, such a method has yet to be established.